Abscond - Banginho/MinChan

Chapter Twenty-Three

They needed to know what they were going to do next.

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The three villains managed to find an abandoned warehouse to stay in for the rest of the night. It wasn't much, but Chris highly doubted that anyone would come in there.

Sitting in the corner of the large room, Chris shivered. "Damn, it's really cold here."

Hyunjin shuddered also, snapping the fingers on his robotic arm together. A small red fire appeared on the palm of his metal hand. "Same. Come on, huddle round."

Chris scooted a bit closer to Hyunjin, immediately somehow feeling warmer. "Whoa. That's really useful."

Hyunjin chuckled. "I know, right. It's a prototype to making beams of fire that kind of emulate what Strike can do, but I didn't really know how to do it properly. This was the result and I don't even know why I still kept it on my arm, but it's definitely coming in use now."

Jeongin spoke up, speaking in a playful tone as his eyes stared directly at the wavering flame. "W-what e-else have you b-been working o-on, Inspector Gadget?"

Hyunjin shook his head at Jeongin's reference. "Just a lot of things. You'll have to see them in combat... Speaking of gadgets though, Chris... you said you visited a KimTech building. What'd you find there? I've always been curious about KimTech technology even though I don't like Mr. Kim that much."

Jeongin scoffed and muttered a small "n-no one does."

Chris shifted in his position and chuckled at Jeongin's comment. "Well, I found a lot of stuff. You guys already saw my air bazooka and those cool dagger things, but I also found this."

Chris rolled up his sleeves, revealing the anti-gravity equipment.

"W-whoa. What d-does th-that do?"

Chris rolled his sleeves back up. "It allows me to walk on walls and make my body less affected by gravity. It's really cool. I don't feel like demonstrating though because I don't feel like getting up."

Mood.

Hyunjin looked amazed. "Wowzers! What else did you find there?"

Chris continued. "I didn't find any more gadgets that I decided to keep, but there were some other things. There was this weird cape that I had no idea what it did and some strange projectiles that almost froze my fingers off... among many other things."

Jeongin raised his eyebrow on the working side of his face. "D-damn. What w-was th-the b-building like?"

Chris looked to the ground, mind going back to that one day. "It was interesting. The building had a lot of office spaces and meeting rooms in one area along with a place that was obviously for storing, manufacturing, and testing weapons and equipment. There was one weird sector that was some sort of lab(?) That area was a bit... unsettling. It looked like they were testing on people there."

Jeongin shuddered, something clearly on his mind. "Wh-where was th-this b-building again?"

"In the middle of a forest."

Jeongin blinked, saying his next words so casually yet quiet. "I-I m-might've been th-there a-already th-then, w-when I was a t-test subject."

The mood darkened a bit right then and there, a silence enveloping the trio.

After a few more long seconds of silence, Jeongin piped up again. "I-I d-didn't mean to r-ruin the m-mood. I-I'm s-sorry, please c-continue."

Chris gave a long, slow nod. "Uh... alrighty then. Um... where was I again?"

Hyunjin chuckled, the casual mood returning almost immediately. "You were talking about the area of the building."

Chris smiled. "Oh, right! Okay, so the only other section there was this garage-like area. There was only a small jet in it, but it looked like it could store many vehicles... I did find something a bit odd in the jet that was kind of interesting, though."

Hyunjin raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

Chris dug into his backpack and pulled out the ripped envelope. "This. It's a letter."

Chris handed it over to Jeongin who pulled it out with his shaky hand, opening it and reading it. Once he was done, Jeongin handed it over to Hyunjin, looking up at Chris. "Th-that's i-interesting. D-do you know w-what i-information i-it's t-talking about?"

Chris shook his head. "Not at all. I kind of want to know though. If KimTech talked to LeeCorp about this, that means KimTech should know, but I didn't find anything about it anywhere."

Hyunjin set the letter down after he finished reading it, eyebrows furrowed. "Isn't LeeCorp a fitness gear company that started in Australia?"

Chris nodded. "Yeah. I don't understand why they have something on Strike considering the nature of the company, or even how they have anything at all for that matter. It's so weird."

"Do you think that it might be of use to find out what it is?

Chris shrugged. "Probably."

Hyunjin nodded. "Our next stop should probably be visiting the LeeCorp headquarters then. After we know what they know, maybe it could help us take down Strike once and for all."

A/N what kind of ending do you want for this book? I've already planned it out and written an outline so I already know what ending I'm doing, but I'm just curious what you all want/expect for an ending (from either a fanservice-based or plot-based perspective) what direction would you take the book if you were writing it? ;)

unedited